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Updated: Feb 22, 2026
Advanced Diffusion Imaging in The Hippocampus of Rats with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: August 14, 2019
Recovery of an injured prefronto-caudate tract in a patient with traumatic brain injury: A diffusion tensor
Sung Ho Jang1, Seong Ho Kim2, Han Do Lee1
1a Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine , Yeungnam University , Namku , Taegu , Republic of Korea.
Objectives:
We report on a patient with improvement of akinetic mutism (AM), who showed recovery of an injured prefronto-caudate tract following traumatic brain injury (TBI), which was demonstrated by follow-up diffusion tensor tractographies (DTTs).
Case Presentation:
A 72-year-old female had suffered from head trauma resulting from falling down the stairs. She was diagnosed as subdural hematoma on the right frontal lobe and subarachnoid haemorrhage. At 5 weeks after head trauma, when starting rehabilitation, she showed no spontaneous movement or speech. She participated in a comprehensive rehabilitative management programme, including movement therapy and dopaminergic drugs, for improvement of AM. During 5 week's intensive rehabilitation, she showed gradual improvement of AM: she became able to perform some daily activities by herself including eating, dressing and walking.
Results:
On 5-week DTT, the neural connectivity of the caudate nucleus (CN) to the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC; Broadmann area [BA]: 10 and 12) and the orbitofrontal cortex (BA: 11 and 13) was decreased in both hemispheres; in contrast, the neural connectivity of the CN to the medial PFC was increased on the left side on 10-week and 6-month DTT.
Conclusions:
Recovery of an injured prefronto-caudate tract concurrent with the improvement of AM was demonstrated in a patient with TBI, using follow-up DTTs.
